5400 to 7200 rpm performance increase?

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited November 2008 in Hardware
I recently got a great deal on an HP Pavilion DV6000 series laptop computer (DV6405US).

It's got Vista Home Premium (wanna switch to XP, more on that later), the TK-53 1.7 Ghz AMD dual core cpu, 1 Gb of RAM, and a 120 Gb Seagate Momentus 5400 rpm hard drive.

I just had the motherboard replaced for free under a warranty recall, and I was able to get the warranty center to upgrade the graphics from the Geforce Go 6150 to Geforce Go 7200.

World of Warcraft and 3DMark05 showed significant improvements in scores and frame rates!

Also in the plan to tune this thing up is to install 2 Gb of RAM (PC2 5300 SODIMMs), swap out the TK-53 1.7 CPU to something better (another topic there), and get another hard drive to install XP on, I want to leave the original hard drive as it is.

My question here is the amount of performance I can expect to gain when going from the 5400 rpm hard drive to a 7200 rpm unit. Between the speed increase and also with UP-grading from Vista to XP, what sort of improvement can I expect to see?

The laptop will be used for general internet use, playing videos, and World of Warcraft sometimes.

I think the only noticeable gain might be in WoW.

Along with installing XP Home, I'm going to make a 20 GB or so partition and experiment with Ubuntu Linux 8.04 LTS.

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    The single biggest upgrade you can make to a notebook is the addition of a 7200 RPM drive.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    The single biggest upgrade you can make to a notebook is the addition of a 7200 RPM drive.

    ++
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited November 2008
    Thrax wrote:
    The single biggest upgrade you can make to a notebook is the addition of a 7200 RPM drive.

    +++

    That is definitely a worthwhile upgrade, Tim. And you can get a Seagate 320 gig SATA notebook drive for around $100-110 now too. I recently upgraded my 100 gig 7200 rpm Seagate in my E1705 to this 320 gig drive and it even helped my load speeds out, since I had that 100 gig drive so full.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    ++++ It will make a significant difference in load and boot times.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    I put in an order with Tiger Direct today. 2 1 GB sticks of Kingston RAM, and a 250 GB Seagate 7200 rpm hard drive. With 2nd day shipping it cost $120 total.:rockon:
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    Nice. That'll make a noticeable improvement.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    Without a doubt. The laptop that I upgraded way back in the day saw a huge benefit, and actually still runs strong on the upgrade today. I actually still use the laptop for occasional gaming, whenever I travel. I wouldn't dream of gaming without the 7200 RPM upgrade. Load times on TF2 would simply not be tolerable without it.
  • manulekamanuleka
    edited November 2008
    7200RPM is definitly quicker - but on laptops means more power consumption which isn't so cool hehe...
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited November 2008
    I don't think today's 7200 rpm laptop drives draw much if any more power than the 5400 rpm variety. IMO the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    Is anyone making a 10,000 rpm laptop drive? Once the disks are up to speed, how much more power does it really take to keep them going?

    SSD's will probably be good enough in a year or so to do that level of performance, if not better.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited November 2008
    I guess you could try taking a VelociRaptor 300 out of the heatsink/case it's in and try it in a laptop. It's a 2.5" drive. But I bet it would kill a battery pretty fast and it might run pretty hot in a laptop.
  • bullzisniprbullzisnipr Topeka, KS
    edited November 2008
    muddocktor wrote:
    I guess you could try taking a VelociRaptor 300 out of the heatsink/case it's in and try it in a laptop. It's a 2.5" drive. But I bet it would kill a battery pretty fast and it might run pretty hot in a laptop.

    Ya, I bet it'd run but cooling will be a major issue. When a customer comes in and asks about 7,200 I tell them it depends how you use the laptop. If the laptop usually stays on a desk with good ventilation, then I recommend a 7k. If you're the type of person (most people are) that have it on your lap while watching tv, or in bed I recommend the 5k drive for heat reasons.

    7,200 drives can create an immense amount of heat ultimately killing the life of the drive, performance, and possible loss of your data. Overall though, it depends where you primarily use the laptop..
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